


because of you i know where i belong

by blanchtt



Series: you see through me (i come alive) [3]
Category: Carol (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 05:20:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15901692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanchtt/pseuds/blanchtt
Summary: “What do you think I’ll be?” Rindy asks, reading the instructions for a potion to heal a broken heart. She knows enough to understand it probably won’t be what her mother does. But what about Therese? It would be funny, Rindy thinks, for her mother to be truly overrun with plants with two of those sorts of witches in the house.





	because of you i know where i belong

 

 

 

 

 

 

four.

 

 

She has the day off from school but her mother is busy with a last-minute appointment, and so she leaves the house with Therese that morning.

 

Therese walks faster than her mother, but all Rindy has to do is tug on her hand, whisper, “Therese,” and Therese slows down, makes sure her strides match Rindy’s.

 

The walk to her shop is quiet—a different kind of quiet that her mother can be, sometimes. Therese is quiet and Rindy knows it’s because she’s listening to the plants—to the trees that line the sidewalk, to the ivy that clings to the brownstones, to the weeds poking out from between cracks. All of them have something important to say, no matter how small, and Rindy knows this because Therese shows her how the plant on the bookcase in their house is asking for more sunlight or the rosemary tells her it’s time for a bigger pot.

 

They reach Therese’s store, and Therese opens the door, lets go of her hand and ushers her inside.

 

It’s warm and humid, overflowing with plants, but Rindy has eyes for nothing except Myshka, Therese’s grey cat who comes trotting up to her, yellow eyes closing in pleasure as Rindy pets her head. Therese, she sees, picks up a watering can, makes her way around the converted greenhouse and tends to her plants.

 

Later in the afternoon, sitting on the floor amidst a forest of ferns and roses and ivy and with Myshka in her lap, eating the sandwich that Therese has brought her, she watches her mother come in, the little bell on the door chiming, and kiss Therese on the cheek before walking over and making a show of finding her amidst the greenery, kneeling and taking her face in her palms and kissing her hello, too.

 

They walk back home hand-in-hand, and Rindy hardly has to beg to be swung between them, giggling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

six.

 

 

“Come on, kiddo,” Aunt Abby says, and they’ve done this many times so Rindy waves goodbye at her mother and Therese, says _see you tomorrow!_ because the two of them look very much torn about watching her leave, but then she’s down the hall with Aunt Abby and taking the elevator and all she can think about is staying up late and eating waffles for dinner.

 

Aunt Abby drives her around in a sleek olive-colored car, points out this and that building and tells her about how Aunt Abby got a parking ticket there or her mother got lost here or Therese used to live there, and Rindy watches with nose pressed against the glass, New York City slipping by.

 

It’s neat but there’s only so long she can sit in a car, but despite the hour and traffic they make it home in no time at all because Aunt Abby is _lucky_.

 

Aunt Abby puts her overnight bag in her guest room and Rindy knows later that that big bed is all for her, but that’s for later and right now Aunt Abby is in the kitchen and Rindy follows her, stands on the chair Aunt Abby pulls over for her and, once the batter’s made, is in charge of scooping it out with a big metal ladle and dropping it on the waffle iron.

 

They eat them with sugar and strawberries in front of the television— _don’t tell your mom_ , Aunt Abby says conspiratorially, and Rindy nods—but once that’s over and Aunt Abby’s taken the plates back to the kitchen Rindy rummages around in the drawer of the coffee table, finds a handful of change and asks Aunt Abby to do that magic trick again where she pulls the quarter out of her ear, which Aunt Abby does eagerly and with many flourishes.

 

“Can you teach it to me?” Rindy asks, and Aunt Abby grins.

 

Later, Aunt Abby looks at the clock on the mantle and whispers _shit_ and tells Rindy to forget that word, and she sweeps her up into the bathroom, helps her get ready and puts her to bed.

 

“Keep at it, kiddo, and soon you’ll put me out of business,” Aunt Abby says with a wink, and Rindy grins before burrowing into the blankets as Aunt Abby turns out the lights.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

eight.

 

 

She’s known for quite a while that some things just aren’t talked about.

 

The way her mother stares at Therese, for one, the same way the people who need her help stare moony-eyed at their someone. The way Therese’s hand settles on the small of her mother’s back, when neither of them think she’s looking, and then leans in for a kiss. They way they come home, first one and then the other, and the smiles on their faces get just a little brighter.

 

Those are some of them, and the others are equally as obvious.

 

The numerous plants in their apartment that grow far larger and greener than the plants in any of her friends’ houses, even in winter. The vials of various things in their kitchen that her mother has labeled fastidiously in a thin, scrawling penmanship, and the dark iron cauldron kept under the stove. The books around the house, tucked away in bookshelves and in kitchen cabinets which her mother only lets her open and page through carefully with supervision because they are so delicate and were so difficult to acquire.

 

“What do you think I’ll be?” Rindy asks, reading the instructions for a potion to heal a broken heart. She knows enough to understand it probably won’t be what her mother does. But what about Therese? It would be funny, Rindy thinks, for her mother to be truly overrun with plants with two of those sorts of witches in the house.

 

Her mother hums, watches her with her elbow on the table, hand tucked under her chin.

 

“I didn’t know until I was twelve. You’ve got a few years yet. Just let it come to you.”

 

Later, she throws herself onto the couch next to Therese, lays her head in her lap and huffs and hopes for a clearer answer.

 

“It was pretty obvious when I was young,” Therese tells her, fingers running through Rindy’s hair. “It’s different for everyone.”

 

It’s unsatisfying and reassuring all at once, and so Rindy waits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

eleven.

 

 

She’s two months from her birthday when it happens.

 

She used to go to her father’s for holidays, a long time ago when she was practically a baby. But it’s been years and years and the memories are hazy, and his name only comes up when she receives her birthday card in the mail, a check tucked inside, and now she gets to spend Christmas with her mother and Therese.

 

Her mother is in the kitchen, no doubt trying not to burn things, and Therese is running around the house, tidying it up before all of their friends come over—Aunt Abby and her girl, Aunt Genevieve and _her_ girl, and maybe Uncle Dannie and his girl later once he’s gotten off work.

 

She sits on the couch, out of the way of everyone and also because of the sleeping kitten in her lap, and strokes Bombay’s coarse black fur.

 

(It had taken a lot of pleading to finally convince her mother to let her bring home one of the kittens from Myshka's latest litter, a little black thing with bright green eyes, and Aunt Abby had had to work _hard_ on the furniture to protect it from curious little claws.)

 

“It’s falling pretty heavy out there,” Aunt Genevieve says loudly by way of a hello as she lets herself in the unlocked front door, and Therese rushes over to greet her, take her and her girl’s coats as Carol kisses the air next to everyone’s cheek in greeting, a wooden spoon still in hand before darting back to the kitchen.

 

It’s over drinks, everyone lingering in the kitchen and Rindy nibbling on a cookie, that Aunt Genevieve’s girl jokes, asks, “Can you just ask it not to snow quite so hard?”

 

That’s not what any of them does, and so Rindy slips out, takes a sleepy Bombay in her arms off of the couch, walks over to the window and looks out, tries and thinks,  _can you please let up just a bit so Aunt Abby can get here alright?_

Later, when Aunt Abby and her girl do get there, she squeezes Rindy in a hug like she always does and takes the drink her mother gives her, and marvels over the break in the storm as well as the fact that they found a parking spot so close by.

 

The parking spot is all Aunt Abby of course, Rindy knows, but that other part might not be, and so Rindy keeps it a secret for now, tells only Bombay curled up with her later that night, and vows to try again tomorrow. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fifteen.

 

 

There is more than one way to make it rain, Rindy learns. Silver and chloride, science, sent off with a humble and well-worded request, not-science.

 

She leans out the window, a hand clutching the sill and Bombay mewing at her feet, throws it all up in the air and lets the wind whisk her words away. It results in a small and concentrated downpour on Madison Avenue, which luckily can be played off as a sudden summer storm.

 

It’s small and in pockets, but hers nonetheless.

 

She brings home a ribbon from the science fair her freshman year, too, overhears her mother and Therese boasting about her to anyone who will listen and hides her face in her hands.

 

She appreciates it though, gets her first job through word of mouth, a request on one of Aunt Genevieve’s play’s opening nights.

 

“It  _cannot_ rain,” Aunt Genevieve says dramatically, and then lowers her voice so as not to be overheard in the cafe, pushes the hot chocolate she's bought for Rindy towards her and takes a sip of her own coffee before adding, “And if you can make it not too windy, too, that would be perfect. Your mother says you can help me with that.”

 

“I think I can do that.” Rindy’s voice wavers, especially when Aunt Genevieve pulls out her pocketbook. “I can’t. You’re family.”

 

“Nonsense,” Aunt Genevieve says in a tone that will not be ignored, and passes her a fat roll of bills without looking at how much is in it exactly. “None of us gives it away for free, Rindy, darling. I’d thought your mothers would have taught you that.”

 

But it’s said with a wink, and Rindy accepts it, studies and practices and then, fingers crossed, stays up late on a school night with her mother's permission and is pleased to find that Aunt Genevieve’s opening night is unusually balmy for fall, clear and light.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

eighteen.

 

 

She chooses NYU for a number of reasons—the degree she can receive, primarily, but also the location, because she’s sure she doesn’t want to leave New York City with its skyline and subways and bodegas and witches sprinkled here and there and horrible, wonderful weather, the business attached to her good name that she’s already spent years setting up, and also because when she’d discussed her options with her mother and Therese, Therese had sobbed at the thought of her moving any further away than New Jersey.

 

It allows her to come home at the end of a long week, slogging all her books and papers to her old room to get a moment to think away from the noise and amusement of the dorms, to kiss sleepy old Bombay’s head hello and rub her shoulders until she purrs, to sit on the couch on Saturday night like she’s always done and talk to her mother over cigarettes and a drink now, or follow Therese into her darkroom and watch her develop film and ask her when she knew she liked her mother _that_ way and what it felt like.

 

Therese doesn’t look away from her work out of necessity, sifts a photo under liquid and thinks before replying, draws the now-exposed photo dripping out from it and hangs it up on a line with two pins before turning to her.

 

“In retrospect, from the moment I saw her,” Therese says, voice dark and soft, and when Rindy asks her mother she gets the same answer, though her mother is less shy about hiding her smile.

 

Monday rolls around and in any case, whether Evelyn from her chemistry class is a friend or a _friend_ or even has something else to hide—because she’s picked up on something between them, and whatever it is Rindy is eager to find out—Rindy takes a last look at herself in the mirror and runs her fingers through her hair, grabs her things, and heads for their study date at the library, throws one last look out the window and rests easy knowing that either way the sun will shine just fine without her help today.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
